One of the first orders of business the governing body of Little Rock Wastewater acted on while operating under its new name Wednesday was approving a nearly $19,000 contract for a consultant's help developing a long-term strategic plan.
Formerly known as the Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Committee, the seven-member body that oversees operations and finances of the wastewater utility got approval Tuesday from the city Board of Directors to change its name to the Little Rock Water Reclamation Commission.
The change brings the commission up to date with other wastewater utilities across the nation that no longer go by the outdated term "sanitary sewer," utility Chief Executive Officer Greg Ramon said.
At its regularly scheduled monthly meeting Wednesday, the commission unanimously approved paying a local consulting firm $18,940 to help the agency with its forthcoming strategic plan.
The committee had already approved contracting with Raftelis Financial Consultants Inc. for $96,960 to conduct a new rate study, the results of which will be presented at the commission's June or July meeting.
Ramon asked for an amendment to that contract to add the strategic-plan guidance as well as a review of the utility's proposed capital plan. The capital plan spells out large-scale capital projects required under a consent administrative order that mandates a reduction in the number of sanitary sewer overflows by 2023.
"Keep in mind, this ongoing rate study is being put together to deal with our capital-improvement program, and I want someone to look at it" to determine if "we are on the right track" or if changes should be made, Ramon said.
A recently retired, high-ranking executive and engineer from another utility will be involved with reviewing the capital plan. Ramon expects the process to take about two weeks, including 40 hours of work and then facilitation.
Commissioner Ken Griffey applauded Ramon for starting now on "looking down the road."
"If I'm hearing correctly, this is all leading to future rate increases that are going to come our way whether we like it or not and how we manage those and how we plan for those and how we road-map those," Griffey said.
Wastewater officials had originally planned to present the results of this year's rate study and any recommended rate increases to the commission at Wednesday's meeting, but the presentation was postponed.
Ramon said he hopes that the report on the added scopes of service approved by the commission Wednesday will also be included in the forthcoming presentation.
Before the commission voted unanimously to fire its former CEO, Reggie Corbitt, in January 2014, Corbitt had recommended a series of four rate increases that would have started this year and lasted through 2019. Those increases included a 10 percent one at the start of 2015 and increases between 4 percent and 6 percent in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
The interim administrative staff opted to postpone that proposal in favor of re-evaluating the recommendation, which was based on a 2008 rate study.
It's unknown whether the increases to be proposed next month will be similar in percentage amounts.
The Little Rock Board of Directors has approved 12 sewer-rate increases since 2000 -- including one already set to go into effect next year -- to meet the requirements of a 2001 Sierra Club lawsuit settlement.
That settlement and the subsequent consent action order requires that the problems leading to citywide sewer overflows be corrected. The original deadline for that was 2015, but it was pushed back to 2018 and most recently delayed another five years until 2023.
An average customer's monthly sewer charge has risen 207 percent from about $13.05 in 2000 to $40.02 now.
Commission Chairman Richard Mays Jr. noted Wednesday that the utility has another $200 million of capital improvements to complete in response to the settlement and consent decree.
"When we think about spending this amount of money," he said referring to the near $19,000 added to the consultant's contract, "it's better to spend this money on this end because we are putting so much in capital improvements."
Metro on 05/21/2015